Cannibal Corpse, M/C

But why did Slaughter feel like that was the one thing he could never do? He looked back at the woman. Yeah, she was in a bad way and he had no doubt that she did have a worm in her. He knew the look they got once they were infected. But he knew something else, too. That junkie back at the encampment had started talking about things she couldn’t possibly know and he had seen the infected do the same thing to one degree or another as they slipped into the coma that led to death…and resurrection.

“Your brother was dead from the first. He was executed in Chicago. Brightman knew it. They sent you here to die because they had to send someone.”

“Listen, Slaughter—” Brightman started to say, but Slaughter cuffed him in the mouth to shut him up. He wanted to hear what this lady had to say. He had come an awfully long way and through some very nasty territory to hear her words.

So he asked her questions and she answered them. Sometimes she went off on crazy tangents, but mostly her words had the ring of truth. She said that there were basically two factions out east fighting for control of the central government: those who wanted a cure from the infesting worms and those who were afraid of the same. The second group was afraid because they knew what caused the worm rains in the first place and if the truth came out—say if Katherine Isley for example made it back east and told all that she knew, which was considerable—they would be held responsible for what had happened to the country and probably be tried for treason and war crimes at the very least.

“And what did cause them? The worms?” he asked. Brightman looked like he was going to open his mouth and Slaughter gave him a hard look that shut him up.

Isley’s eyes rolled in her head a moment, then focused…somewhat. “It was called the Proteus Experiment: a biological weapons program that got out of control. It proved to be self-perpetuating. After the worm larva was set loose experimentally, it was found that it could not be contained.”

“And you?”

“I was brought in to seek a cure of sorts,” she admitted. “What I came up with was a synthetic virus. Then things happened. I think you know the story. I ended up here.”

Slaughter sighed and ground his cigarette out under his boot. “I don’t get it. Why the charade? If they wanted me dead why didn’t they put a bullet in my head?”

Isley told him to remember the two factions: those who did not know and those who did. The first group knew what Isley had been working on with the CDC, they knew about the mathematical model for the virus. They wanted her found and brought back. The reality of the situation was the armed forces—special ops and commandos—that could pull off such an operation were stretched pretty thin as it was. But the first group demanded. The second group could not admit their culpability, but at the same time they had to play along with the first group. To do anything less would have been inhumane and immoral. That’s when Brightman, who was CIA, and his think tank came up with the perfect solution…especially when a report came across his desk about a renegade biker named John Slaughter who had killed a couple of cops and was heading ever west. They’d grab Slaughter, free his boys from lockup, send them on a mission they couldn’t possibly complete (it was thought) and then no one could say a rescue hadn’t been attempted. Of course, the people back east would be told it was a highly-trained mercenary force of expendables, not a bunch of rowdy outlaw bikers. Perception management. Playing one hand against the other.

Brightman was sweating and breathing hard by that point. He just shook his head. “Slaughter…please listen to me,” he said, trying it once again. “This woman is ill. She is delirious. She’s talking fantasy. Please! Use your head.”

Slaughter went over to Isley and cut her loose. “You’re coming with me.”

“I can’t. I’m infected. But…if you help me,” she said, tottering uneasily. “I think I can help you.”

He led her from the room and behind him Brightman was screaming hysterically: “SLAUGHTER! GODDAMMIT, SLAUGHTER! YOU LET ME OUT OF HERE! YOU CUT ME LOOSE! DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU GODDAMN FUCKING NO GOOD SHIT-EATING FUCKING BIKER TRASH! YOU CUT ME LOOSE!”

Slaughter led her down the corridor using his flashlight. He called out for Apache Dan but there was no reply. A sense of dread began to move through him. They came to a door with a digital lock. Isley punched a code and it opened to a plush office with leather chairs and an antique desk, impressionist paintings on the walls, and a wet bar. Very nice. Very cozy.

“This was Colonel Krigg’s office,” she said. “He’s dead. He was one of the first that the reanimates fed upon.”

“Okay. How can you help me?”

She fell into a chair, seemingly barely conscious by that point. She told him there was something behind the paneling. He gripped its edges and it swung out. A safe. A big floor safe.

“Open it,” she said, telling him the combination.